


all i want is the taste that your lips allow

by cluelessclown



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19177651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cluelessclown/pseuds/cluelessclown
Summary: Thomas Barrow has never deemed himself worthy of love, but a late night conversation might prove him otherwise.





	all i want is the taste that your lips allow

Thomas Barrow had never felt as though he was worthy of love. That was, in the end, what resided at the core of his loneliness — not that he thought himself incapable of being loved, but that he simply didn’t deserve it. Not after growing up being taught that loving people of his same sex was one of the worst sins he could commit, not after failing at every single attempt of finding something more than furtive sexual encounters with strangers when they were a little too drunk and claimed to like girls all the same. He had simply assumed that his sexual condition made him incapable of leading a fulfilling romantic life, at least not the way Anna and Bates or their ladyships upstairs did. And by the time he met Jimmy Kent, the new footman at Downton, he had very simply assumed that he was destined to a life of loneliness and one-sided pining for men that would never feel attracted towards him. They became friends, played cards together and discussed the news that they read on the paper before taking it upstairs, and Thomas allowed himself to marvel every now and then at how his blue eyes gleamed in the morning and his blond hair stuck up when he had just gotten out of bed, but that was it for a while.

That is, until Jimmy came home one day, a little too drunk after having met up with an old childhood friend at the local pub, and Thomas had to help him to bed with an amused expression that was swept off his face when Jimmy placed his hands on his cheeks and pressed his lips against Thomas’s, sputtering something about how he didn’t understand why he felt so attracted to him or why he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him while drinking at the pub, not once, wishing that he was sitting right next to him playing cards instead of chatting with his old mate. Thomas felt confused at first, but decided that the happy flutter in his stomach was worth being listened to and finally leaned in to kiss Jimmy again, crawling into bed with him and deciding that the blond-haired footman must have been absolutely wasted and wouldn’t even remember what had happened the next morning, but that he might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

That was why he couldn’t quite believe it when Jimmy meekly muttered something about wanting to sleep with him, if that was okay with Thomas, because the warmth of his skin and the feeling of his chin against his blond curls made him feel at home. The first streaks of sunlight were already poring through Thomas’s window, but he gathered that they still had a few hours before Mrs Patmore came knocking on his door as she usually did.

And of course, Thomas happily obliged.

Much to his surprise, Jimmy didn’t avoid him after that first night together. Instead, the young man spent the following day nudging his foot against Thomas’s under the kitchen table, casting mischievous glances at him whenever they bumped into each other while serving dinner and even offering him a cheeky smile when Mrs Patmore said something about the two of them being _such a nice pair of chaps_ over dinner. And, when the last of the servants went to bed, the two of them found themselves kissing heatedly against the kitchen wall, Jimmy’s hands all over Thomas’s uniform and making the black-haired footman feel a gushing desire that he had never felt towards anyone else before.

They had been sleeping together for a couple of months after that, falling into a somewhat pleasing routine of sneaking around during the day, stealing kisses from each other only when they were absolutely sure that no one else could see them, and spending nearly every single night together. They were usually the last ones to go to bed, so nobody deemed it strange when they stayed behind, playing cards or discussing the news as the night dug into Downton and even the most diligent of servants decided to call it a day and go to sleep. When the last of them left, Jimmy’s eyes would gleam in anticipation and Thomas’s eyebrows would rise with a smirk, and before the two of them could even realize what was going on they had already entangled themselves into the most impossible of kisses — right there, in the middle of the kitchen. They would then move on to Thomas’s bedroom, where the raven-haired footman introduced Jimmy to all sorts of delights and pleasures that the younger man would have never even dared to dream about while growing up.

But the best thing about it came right after the sex, when Jimmy would curl up against Thomas’s chest and press soft kisses against parts of a man’s body that he had never even dreamed of touching, while they talked about their childhoods, their expectations for the future, and the things that they were most passionate about. Thomas soon learned that Jimmy had grown up in a village near Newcastle, and that he had moved to York when his mother passed away when he was twelve, and that he had gotten his first job in service around the age of seventeen. He also learned that he had an older sister, who had married a coal miner and moved to Durham shortly before Jimmy began working at Downton, and that he had a little nephew that he had only been able to see once but whom he loved with all his heart. But most importantly, he learned that there was a lot more to Jimmy than he had allowed anyone else at Downton to acknowledge — he soon told Thomas, in a meek whisper against his lover’s shoulder, that he wished he knew more about the stars and the universe and everything that surrounded them, and that in spite of having only attended primary school he wished he could have studied a little more and gotten to know how the world works, because he had always secretly wondered whether all the things he had been taught as a kid, mostly through his mother’s devout attendance to Sunday mass and their vicar’s preaching, was necessarily right.

“Why shouldn’t it be, though?” Thomas asked as he ran a lazy hand through Jimmy’s hair. He had never been the touchy type, but he had slowly realized that he loved grazing Jimmy’s blond curls with the tips of his fingers, especially when they were still a little sweaty and the golden locks of hair stuck to his temples. “I don’t really care who or what created this planet, or animals, or the human race. The fact is that we’re here, and we’re probably never going to figure it all out, so that’s that. Might as well just enjoy it while it lasts, I s’pose.”

“I just think that so much of what we were taught growing up is wrong,” Jimmy explained, gazing up at Thomas. “I don’t know. I’ve always been told that pre-marital sex is a sin, when it’s just about the best thing I’ve ever tried.” Thomas chuckled, and Jimmy’s lips curved into a small smile. The blond footman placed a hand on Thomas’s hip and rubbed his thumb against it ever so lightly, averting his gaze for a second. “And I . . . well, I’ve always been told that men can’t sleep with other men, and that women can’t sleep with other women. And they obviously can’t fall in love with each other, either, because it’s wrong and you’ll be doomed to Hell and eternal damnation and whatnot. But I don’t know, Tom. It . . . it just feels so _right_.”

Thomas’s chest fluttered. Not only because of what Jimmy had just said, but rather because he had decided to call him _Tom_. Nobody called him that anymore — not since his mother passed away, at least.

“It does feel right, doesn’t it?” Thomas pressed a kiss to the back of Jimmy’s hand and smiled.

“Yeah,” Jimmy nodded as he quietly interlaced his fingers with Thomas’s. “And liberating, too. You know, there’s always been this side of me that I’ve tried to erase all my life — I knew I liked women, sure, but I remember once, when I was thirteen or so, when a new vicar arrived to our parish. He was young, really handsome, and knew all sorts of things about science and nature and taught us all about how religion could go hand-in-hand with them. I fancied him _so much_ , Tom, but I spent years trying to ignore it because of how wrong I thought it was. And now, well, I s’pose I get to exhale.”

Thomas did a half-smile and pressed a kiss to Jimmy’s forehead. “Exhale all you want, Jim.”

And that was it for a few minutes, in which the two of them simply decided to relish on the fact that they were together and how perfectly right the other’s touch felt on their skin — as though, in some way, it had been created with the sole purpose of being touched by the other’s hands some day. Thomas had always daydreamed of kissing Jimmy, of having sex with him, of sneaking around when no-one else was looking and sharing a heated moment in a closet or by the barn. But this, simply _being_ with him — being able to freely trace the drops of sweat that still remained on his temple, to caress his hair and to place soft kisses against every single inch of his body — that was something that he had never even dared to dream of, simply because he had never thought he would be able to share that sort of relationship with anyone, let alone with Jimmy Kent.

“I love you, Tom.” Jimmy breathed finally, his eyes closed and a small smile on his lips.

And that was when something, somewhere deep inside of Thomas, cracked open and allowed him to feel genuinely _happy_.

“Love you too, Jim.” Thomas placed his arms around him, and smiled against Jimmy’s hair like he had never done before. He had finally gotten to exhale, too, because never in all his life had he dreamed of something or someone so perfect coming across his path and loving him for who he was; no scornful looks, no buts, no conditions. He had long ago decided that he would relish every single instant of it, hoping that it would go on for the rest of their lives, until they were old and grey and shared a little house in the countryside, where they could love each other freely and not just in their bedroom — because it had finally become theirs, and not just his — and kiss over the kitchen table and snuggle against each other on the sofa while reading the paper, and perhaps, when the right time came, tell their friends all about it.

But for now, holding him as he dozed off to sleep was all that Thomas needed.

**Author's Note:**

> still not over the way julian fellowes queerbaited us all into depression tbh. hope you enjoyed it though!


End file.
